Wheaton residents continue to report several incidents of identity theft.
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A resident in the 1700 block of Wakeman Avenue reported receiving a collection notice from an unlawfully opened Comcast account on Feb 27. The account was opened sometime in November 2015, and the charges were for the months from November to February.
A resident in the100 block of Cross Street reported a credit card account was compromised and identity was stolen. The charges happened from Feb. 1 to 20.
Wheaton police also continue to fight against would-be scam artists pretending to represent the government or companies in order to coerce residents to pay excessive fees or face charges from law enforcement or disruption of services.
On Feb. 29 the city of Wheaton, with ComEd, issued a new warning against individuals posing as representatives of the power company and demanding money or having their electricity turned off.
Wheaton police Sgt. Princeton Youker said there have been no reported ComEd scams in Wheaton but said similar other scam operations have been reported in Wheaton. Youker said the warning on the city website was a preemptive measure to warn residents.
The ComEd impersonators “instruct customers to buy a prepaid credit card and call back to a different phone number with the personal identification number or other personal information,” according to the alert.
ComEd said it never requests customers purchase a prepaid card in order to pay. In addition, the ComEd impersonators use a tactic called “spoofing” to manipulate the caller ID displayed phone number so that it appears as a ComEd number, police said.
Alex Keown is a freelance reporter.